Category: General Sports

Do Home Teams Wear White? Why?

Dear Sports Fan,

Speaking of my teams colors. can you explain the color choices and jersey choices that teams have.  I know there are home jerseys and away jerseys.  What are third jerseys?  What about when two teams play at home (Gians v. jets)?

Thanks,
Pat

 

Dear Pat,

This is something I’ve been wondering about for years! I swear that when I was a kid the home team used to wear white. Now they seem to wear their team color and the road team usually wears white. Arghh — it’s been driving me crazy! Thanks to your question, I did a little research and I think that I can explain it.

Here’s what I think happened. When I was a kid, the two primary sports in my life were soccer (which I played maniacally until my knees fell off) and hockey (which I started watching maniacally in 1993-94. In both of these cases, it was customary for the home team to wear white and the away team to wear a more colorful uniform. On my traveling team we wore white at home and when we drove to Manalapan or Hopewell we wore our sweet orange unis that looked like the Princeton University ones with a little pretentious crest. In the NHL it was the same way. My favorite team, the Penguins, wore their white and gold uniforms at home and their black and gold ones on the road whether I was watching them on my fuzzy little television or playing as them in the classic computer game NHL 93 on my fuzzy little computer screen. The other major sports in the U.S., Football, Basketball, and Baseball were present in my life, but off to the edge somewhere. I’m not sure I made note of their color systems. Since then, these sports (except for Baseball) have become a bigger part of my life while soccer has retreated into the distance (with my knees.) As this happened, the NHL decided to switch (in 2003) from Home = white to Home = color. Anyway, this is how it stands now:

  • Football — Home = Color
  • Hockey — Home = Color
  • Baseball — Home = White
  • Basketball — Home = White

It’s a little confusing, but there are arguments/explanations for both systems. For example — the road team wears darker colors because once upon a time they might not have had access to laundry between games and the darker colors hid the stains better. Or — home teams wear light jerseys because dark jerseys attract the sun which is a competitive disadvantage. Or — (and this is where your third jersey explanation comes in) the road teams wear white so that the home team can use its third jersey. A third jersey is usually another colored jersey that is either futuristic or a throw-back to a previous color scheme/design that a team will wear strategically to sell more merchandise to its fans. Some sports have requirements about when or how much teams can use this third jersey.

Back in my (old)hockey/soccer days I always thought the color scheme came down to a question of identification. Everyone knows who the home team is because it’s the home team! So it’s okay for them to wear white. The color of the road team helps the home fans to know who they are playing against. Later in my football/(new)hockey days I thought it was a subjugation thing — the home team gets to peacock around in its finest colored plumage while the road team is forced to look just like everyone else in white. When there are two “home teams” like in the case of Jets v. Giants or Lakers v. Clippers, the league will designate one of the teams as “home” and one as “away.” Jersey colors, season tickets, and other stuff follows from that.

What really bugs me is that home teams during the NHL playoffs will often do a “white-out” where all their fans get free white t-shirts. This is supposed to be intimidating? To a road team that’s wearing white? Arhg!!!

In case this hasn’t been enough dorky conversation about team colors, check out these guys at ColorWerx™ (formerly The Society for Sports Uniforms Research.™) Whoa!

Thanks,
Ezra Fischer

Why Aren't the Rules the Rules? (Part 2)

Dear Sports Fan,

Reading about the bad call in the Pittsburgh/Atlanta game last night reminded me of something I’ve always wondered. Whether it’s because the ref is looking the other way (literally or figuratively), or because of just plain human error, the rules in sports are often either not enforced, or not enforced correctly. But in many cases, it seems like people just consider that an integral part of the game! Especially given the increasing ability of technology to settle disputes, why not just come up with what the real rules ought to be, and then enforce them as thoroughly as possible?

Thanks,
Erik

— — —

(This is a continuation of an answer to this question. The first half was posted here.)

It will ruin the game:

There is some concern that adding technology to sports will ruin the game by making it too sterile or too slow. Taking the humanity out of the game could be a concern, but as much as people love discussing disputed calls at the water cooler, they also love talking about great (and terrible) performances, and great (and terrible) decisions on the part of the players and coaches. There will always be something to talk about. As for making the game too slow… uh… it could not possibly slow down the game as much as television time-outs, arguing with refs about calls, or in the case of baseball… adjusting your batting gloves, hat, glove, or cup compulsively over and over and over again.

It’s too expensive:

FIFA, the notoriously frustrating international federation of soccer refuses to add video replay to international competition because it would be too expensive for some of its member nations to implement. This is a curious reason since it seems like knowing ahead of time that you will actually know whether the ball crossed the goal line during the game shouldn’t change any element of tactics or strategy.

What do you mean “right?”

This is the heart of the answer to your question. A rule says, “it’s against the rules to trip an opponent” but does that mean “it’s against the rules to trip an opponent” or “it’s against the rules to trip an opponent if you get caught?” It’s clear from these two sports cliches which way the sports world leans: “it’s not a foul if you don’t get caught” and “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.”

Sports, particularly baseball is all about cheating. The last twenty years have been shaped by steroids and HGH. Before that there were amphetamines called greenies. Before that teams regularly intimidated officials or just plain assaulted them when they didn’t like the calls they were getting. It’s well know that the 1919 World Series was fixed by a few players on the White Sox and there have always been unproven rumors that the 1918 one might have been fixed as well. Cyclists are jam-packed full of drugs. They have been for a long time but “tiny electric motors…?” That’s a new one.

Even if a player is clean when he steps onto the court, he or she is rarely clean by the end of the game. Some of the most memorable plays in sports history have been the beneficiaries of some incorrect or missed calls. In soccer there is the “hand of god” goal, in basketball, Michael Jordan’s famous shot to beat the Utah Jazz is an offensive foul. Watch the video and notice Jordan’s left hand on his defender’s hip… he definitely pushes off.

Jordan is not great in spite of pushing off, he’s great partially because he pushed off and didn’t get caught.

Another way to state the question is — do we really want to have the game called “perfectly?” Here’s an example of this in the non-sports world. We certainly have the technology to identify each car and driver and what road they are on. Why shouldn’t we simply fine people whenever they go over the speed limit? Why waste all the time, money, and talent of our police departments lurking around trying to catch people when we could just automate it? I know we’ve started doing this with running some red lights, but I think that if we tried to automate speeding tickets on a large scale there would be riots and political parties would shape up around the issue… and I’m not sure which would be worse! It’s the same with most sports — a totally policed game is a boring one.

Thanks for the fun question,
Ezra Fischer

Why Aren't the Rules the Rules?

Dear Sports Fan,

Reading about the bad call in the Pittsburgh/Atlanta game last night reminded me of something I’ve always wondered. Whether it’s because the ref is looking the other way (literally or figuratively), or because of just plain human error, the rules in sports are often either not enforced, or not enforced correctly. But in many cases, it seems like people just consider that an integral part of the game! Especially given the increasing ability of technology to settle disputes, why not just come up with what the real rules ought to be, and then enforce them as thoroughly as possible?

Thanks,
Erik

 

Dear Erik,

Great question! In fact, this is such an interesting question that I’m going to break my answer into a couple blog posts.

The bad call that you’re referring to is this one:

It won’t work:

Sports rules are complicated and the action happens very, very quickly. Assuming that there is no way that we’re going to be able to rework the rules to change something as integral as “if the catcher has the ball in his glove and touches the runner before he touches home plate, he’s out” then one has to wonder how technology will help. Setting aside video replay for a second, let’s look for another solution. Okay, so — let’s put a chip in the ball. Then, let’s put some material in the catcher’s glove such that the ball knows when it’s in the glove. Great — now we’re cooking with gas! Now we have to have either more material covering the runner’s uniform… and hands, arms, head, neck, etc. Or, I guess we could just monitor whether the glove is making contact by putting some sort of pressure meeter into the ball or glove. Except that won’t work because that glove could hit the ground, the ump, or the catcher’s own body. I’m not sure any of this will work, so let’s go back and examine video replay.

Video replay is the most common form of technology in sports. Football, basketball, hockey, even baseball (believe it or not) have some form of video replay in their rules. In baseball use of video replay is restricted to basically deciding whether a ball was a home run or whether it never left the ball-park, did leave but was subject to fan interference, or left but was foul (too far off to the side to count.) Other sports have more extensive video replay rules. You may have noticed NFL coaches comically struggling to get a little red flag out of their sock, pants, shirt, etc. and throw it onto the field — they are “challenging” the ref’s judgement and calling for a video replay. Every goal in hockey is reviewed by a team of video officials in Toronto. The NBA has been able to replay shots at the end of quarters and games and just recently added video replay for unclear out-of-bounds calls.

Tennis has a system called Hawkeye. This is probably as close as it gets to your suggestion. According to Wikipedia, “all Hawk-Eye systems are based on the principles of triangulation using the visual images and timing data provided by at least four high-speed video cameras located at different locations and angles around the area of play.” In tennis the rules are objective and there is technology which insures the calls are too. Or at least can be. The computer has not totally replaced the line-judges or the referee yet… although I could see a time in the not so distant future where they could.

Most other sports are not as tidy as tennis though. Take the call at home plate that started this discussion: here’s how Jonah Keri described it on Grantland.com

If you want to use replay to make a simple yes or no call, you won’t get unanimity. And no, the fact that Lugo acted as if he were out does not constitute iron-clad proof.

Watch the replay for yourself, with the sound off.

Here’s what I did see: Lugo starts his slide well in front of the plate. Home plate umpire Jerry Meals starts to make his safe sign just as Lugo touches home with his right foot. There’s no way Meals has time to process the play and rule that Lugo had already touched home. He’s also not looking at Lugo’s foot, but rather at the swipe tag. (It should be noted that Lugo did in fact touch home with his right foot the first time — the follow-up tap of home with his left foot was unnecessary.)

Either way, replay wouldn’t have resolved the issue. Not to the point where all parties, including a purple Clint Hurdle, would have been satisfied.

And, as Keri also points out, at the time of this call, the ump had been on the field working in a high-pressure environment for six hours and 39 minutes. Furthermore — even Baseball is a nice tidy game compared to Hockey or Football. No matter how many cameras, sensors, and computers you have, there is no chance in hell you’ll be able to figure out what happened at the bottom of a pile with thousands of pounds of angry football player fighting over the ball.

More tomorrow…
Ezra Fischer 

 

The Life of an Agent

Interesting column from Rick Reilly at ESPN about a day in the life of an NFL agent – and not just any day in the life, but perhaps one of the craziest days anyone involved in NFL personnel will ever see. The highlight? An NFL player calling his agent, alarmed that he got a drug testing kit from the league and freaking out because…well…as Reilly says with masterful diplomacy, the player wasn’t “ready” to take a drug test. Turns out you can’t cram for those. Definitely worth clicking to see how it turns out, cause it’s phenomenal and there’s no way I’m spoiling the ending here.

9:44 a.m. Big crisis.

A prominent NFC player is freaking out. The NFL has dropped off a urine-testing kit at his house when he’s clearly not — how shall we say this? — ready.

Apparently, the end of the lockout came as a surprise to him. Schaffer talks him off the ledge.

“Hold on, hold on (blank). They can’t do that. They haven’t finished the language on drug testing yet in the CBA. They can’t test you if it’s not in the contract. This is still America, right?”

Schaffer calls the players’ union to check. A union lawyer gets on the line and Schaffer gets the player on the line.

“OK, listen carefully, (blank). We need you to have somebody videotape you putting the entire thing — the test tubes, the instructions, everything — into a clear, sealed bag. Then FedEx it to me immediately. Got it?”

“OK, OK,” the player says.

Then, just as a precaution, Schaffer says, “Read me the directions, will you?”

Click here to see what happens…

What is the Most Challenging Ball Sport? The Least?

Dear Sports Fan,

What do you consider the most physically challenging sport that involves a ball? The least?

Thanks,
Crystal

— — —

Okay, so bocce is not the most physically challenging... but is it a sport?

Hey Crystal,

I’m glad you said “physically challenging” rather than simply “challenging.” That makes this a much easier question for me to answer because it rules out baseball. Baseball (only nominally a sport as far as I’m concerned) is extremely technically challenging but virtually no one would say it is the most physically challenging sport. I’m glad you specified that the sport should involve a ball because that rules out hockey, ballet, and cycling. All three of those sports are incredibly physically grueling often to the point of seriously damaging the people who play them.

The most physically challenging ball sport has to be water polo. I know I’ve mentioned water polo before so attentive readers may be thinking that I just have a thing for water polo. But seriously — imagine swimming and treading water for 32 minutes.[1] That’s exhausting enough! Now add playing a sport which involves a lot of time treading water without your hands and arms and tons of times when you drive yourself up out of the water to catch, throw, and block the ball. To that add violence. Tons of violence. Here is an article from the Washington Post written during the 2004 olympics that describes this pretty well:

Water polo players launch themselves out of the water to shoot.

Through the murk of the water, you see elbows swung into guts, knees slammed into groins, hands yanking bathing suits into painful wedgies, guys simply swimming on top of an opponent and holding him under water until he fights his way, punching and kicking, to the surface. Technically, none of this stuff is legal, but the refs working the poolside allow a certain amount of leeway.

The least physically challenging sport is actually a harder question because being physically challenging is one of the elements that usually helps distinguish between a game and a sport. For instance, though many of you might think I was going to argue for golf as the least challenging sport, I would say that if you count golf as a sport, you should count bocce! And bocce is much less physically challenging than golf.[2] No need to limber up to hit a ball hundreds of feet in bocce. No “walking the course” for 72 holes over four days. Bocce consists of throwing not that heavy balls not that far towards an even smaller, lighter ball.

One of the best five baseball players in the world.
TIME FOR TEA!!!

If you exclude bocce, golf, pool, darts, and try to find a true sport sport which is pretty easy to play, then I think it’s probably got to be cricket. I don’t know that much about cricket but I do know that test cricket is played over up to five days. During each day “there are usually three two-hour sessions, with a forty minute break for ‘lunch’ and a twenty minute break for ‘tea’.” I am sure cricket takes an enormous amount of skill and it’s hard to argue that baseball (a sport where one of it’s best players looks like this) is more physically demanding… but…. well, what do you think?

Great question!
Ezra Fischer

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. There are four eight-minute quarters in water polo although because the clock stops on fouls and when the ball goes out of bounds, most quarters actually last around 12 minutes. Players will continue to tread water even when the clock has stopped. We hope.↵
  2. Excluding cross-country bocce, of course!↵

Getting Old in Sports

Here’s an article from Chris Ballard that was published on Sports Illustrated recently. It’s an exploration of how age works in an industry where 37 is “ancient.” I enjoyed it for his insight into professional sports, but more for how he connected his own experiences of aging while playing in recreational games with what professional athletes go through.

What is it about this age and sports? Thirty-seven is when Reggie Miller turned into a role player, when Joe Montana became human, when Muhammad Ali retired for the first—and what should have been the last—time. Thirty-seven is where expectations go to die. Fans don’t expect fortysomethings to be All-Stars; if a 41-year-old is even playing, we glorify him. Look at that lovable codger; he’s still going! But at 37 the athlete still carries a whiff of greatness. When he doesn’t perform, we are disappointed. He is not yet lovable. He is letting us down.

Why do Sports Have Seasons?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why are sports played during certain seasons?

Thanks,
Jill

 

Dear Jill,

That’s an interesting question. Oddly enough I could find barely any answer for your question online. So… I’ll just have to make up an answer.

Sports seasons once made sense because the weather fit the sport. Football was played in the fall because it’s best played on cool, crisp autumn days. Playing football in the summer would be tortuous and dangerous for players running around in what basically amounted to heavy leather armor. Baseball cannot be played in the winter and because the season is so long and games have to be canceled on even the hint of rain, it’s important to get started as soon as spring begins to spring. Hockey is played on ice so… winter seems like a natural time for it especially in the days before super-powerful air-conditioners made it feasible to play hockey in South Florida and Texas. Since real Americans don’t play hockey, they needed something else to play in the winter. Enter Basketball, a sport that could be played in the summer but could be played in the winter!

Everything made some sort of intuitive sense until serious money got injected into sports leagues. With few exceptions, the more games a league scheduled, the longer the season, the more teams made the playoffs and the longer the playoffs were, the more money owners and players and television stations could make. This is where things started getting mushy. In 1960, when the NFL began it had a 12 game regular season. The next year they expanded to 14 games which lasted until 1978 when they added another 2 games. It’s been that way since then although they are now discussing moving to an 18 game season as part of the lockout negotiations. The first Super Bowl was held on Jan 15, 1967. This year’s Super Bowl was on February 6! Similar transformations have happened in the NBA and the NHL. The first NBA championship was on April 22, 1947. The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Chicago Stags. This year’s NBA championship ended on Sunday June 12! The NHL is not far behind. Actually it’s ahead. This year the NHL Finals ended on June 15. That’s not hockey weather!! The first NHL championship was back in 1893 and I can’t figure out the date, but the first modern championship ended on April 19. As for Baseball — the World Series has shifted from October 13 in 1903 to November 1.

Everything used to be better. Now nothing makes any sense. Or so says the grumpy old man…

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

 

Do Sports Fans Use Sports as a Reward?

Dear Sports Fan,

Do sports fans use watching sports as a reward for doing work? If not how do they ever get anything done?

Confused,
Bette

 

Dear Bette,

That’s a loaded question isn’t it? I don’t use watching sports as a reward for doing work but I’m not big on consciously rewarding myself for behavior. Also I don’t often bring work home with me. I’m sure some people use watching sports as a reward for cleaning a room, working out, or getting some work task done just the same way people use a hershey kiss or a half hour with a magazine or tv show. It’s probably a bit harder to do though because watching sports is one of the few television events that you still want to watch live. So it’s not like you can just watch the sporting event whenever you want once you’re done with a task. Instead, I think most sports fans plan their life around events that they really want to see. Certainly a swath of our culture plans itself around doing not much but watching football every Sunday during the fall. The Super Bowl (or the day after) should be a national holiday. I try to not take on too many after-work commitments during the spring because I know I will want to come home and watch the NBA and NHL playoffs on most days.

There are three other answers to your question some of which contradict each other:

  • We don’t get much done. Being a sports fan requires a lot of time and therefore is really only sustainable if you don’t have a lot to get done. Of course sports fans are sometimes productive members of society but they do seem to find ways to contribute that don’t take all day…
  • We can get stuff done while watching sports. As discussed in a previous post answering the question of why sports fans seem to pick even sports they don’t like over any other entertainment, watching sports doesn’t take your whole attention like watching other television does. Sports fans can usually grade papers, write memos, or (ahem) write blog posts while watching sports.
  • We don’t do anything else. You may think we spend a lot of time watching sports and you’d be right. But you don’t know that we don’t window shop online, garden, read, listen to the radio, clean our houses, cook, bathe regularly, or talk to our families. If the games are really good that day we might stop moving, blinking, eating, or breathing just to be sure we don’t miss anything.

Jokes aside, there is a lot of time floating around out there and I bet if you looked closely you’d be able to add up the time that you use for a few avocations and equal the amount a sports fan spends on sports.

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

Why Will Sports Fans Watch Any and All Sports?

Dear Sports Fan,

I feel like personal preference exists in all forms of entertainment. How is it that sports fans will choose any sport over anything else, even when the other option is something they like and the sport is one they don’t?

Confused and a little frustrated,
Sarah

 

Dear Sarah,

What a great question! This is a great point about sports fans. Many of us watch an enormous array of sports often at the expense of other forms of entertainment. It is apropos for me to try to answer this on the Fourth of July, a day when each and every year I find myself horrified and fascinated but glued to the television for the annual hot dog eating contest on Coney Island. Why do I do this? It’s really, really gross but I suppose I watch it for many of the reasons I watch other sporting events:

  • Competition — No matter how good an episode of 30 Rock at the end there is no winner and no loser. Err… I guess usually Jack Donaghy wins and Liz Lemon loses, but you know what I mean. The natural tension of sports does come from competition. Even when I don’t really care which team wins, it’s clear that the competitors care and that passion is contagious.
  • Habit/Cross-Promotion — Okay, you got us, a lot of the time a sports fan will be watching sports out of sheer habitual inertia. You get used to getting home and turning ESPN on. When the best thing that’s on is a college lacrosse… so what, it’s still something to watch. There is a limit though, and every fan has a different line. For me it’s usually somewhere around golf or baseball; for others it may be soccer or women’s basketball. ESPN and other sports channels have an interest in pushing that line back so that it includes as many of its programming hours as possible. To that end they have gotten really, really good at promotion. Their pitch is usually effective and it centers around the next of our reasons…
  • Potential for Memorableness — In the long-run, one of the payoffs for being a faithful watcher of sports is that you will be watching when some really crazy things happen. Most people turned the Monday Night Football game off on October 23, 2000 when after 3 quarters the Miami Dolphins were up 30 to 7. But, like you noticed — some sports fans favor even the most seemingly meaningless, settled sports game over other forms of entertainment. I kept watching the game. Sure enough, the Jets came back in the fourth quarter and ended up winning the game 40 to 37! It’s games like this that contribute to us leaving the game on the tv no matter what.
  • Strategy — Most sports, especially team sports, share certain elements of strategy that are immediately recognizable. If you are a big soccer fan then watching a basketball game will be familiar because of the fluid passing of a good point guard. A hockey fan may not love that football keeps stopping all the time, but a good solid hit is a universal. Even more unusual sports, like water polo or cycling often have recognizable strategies if you are a fan of other sports; and part of the fun is the translation.
  • We’re not REALLY watching — Watching sports, unless it’s a particularly important game (defined as involving your favorite team OR in the playoffs) doesn’t require as much attention as other forms of entertainment. I can read the newspaper, write a blog entry, clean my apartment, organize my life (ha ha) while I watch a basketball game but if I’m watching an episode of The Sopranos or Boston Legal or even Chopped, I feel like I have to be more fully attentive.

I hope I’ve been able to answer your question. I’m off to watch the hot dog eating contest although I will probably switch back and forth to Versus’ coverage of the Tour de France. Later on there’s some international Under-17 Year-old soccer.

Happy Fourth of July!
Ezra Fischer

Why Don't Coaches Wear Suits Anymore?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why is it that when I look at classic footage the coaches are always wearing suits, but now they all look like models for sports authority?

Thanks Pat

 

Dear Pat,

On this issue, football’s no different than any other area of American business – forty years ago you couldn’t picture businessmen wearing anything other than a suit, even to sleep. Now, Mark Zuckerberg proudly states that he never wore a suit until he met the President.

The worst sideline dresser in the NFL is Bill Belichick, the Mark Zuckerberg of professional football. He’s the New England Patriots coach who looks like he should be holding a sign asking you for change…and is also widely acknowledged as the most brilliant coach of this era. Now, he’s partly a mad scientist, which is why he can get away with wearing cut-off sweatshirts (yes, they exist,) but if you’re a coach and you see the guy dominating your profession wearing pajamas to work, why the heck would you dress up in a suit?

There’s no doubt that it’s impressive to see Tom Landry, the legendary Cowboys coach,  striding along the sidelines in a sharp suit and a fedora, barking out orders. And I have no doubt that more coaches will come along and, as part of their persona, decide they want to look sharp on the sidelines – so the suit’s not gone forever — but if you give people the choice between dressing formally or dressing in Nike or dressing in Brooks Brothers, 95 percent of the time they’re going to take the tracksuit every time. That’s science.

Thanks for your question,
Dean Russell Bell

[Editors note: Hockey coaches still wear suits. Another of the many reasons it’s the best sport around. EF]